Juniata Faculty Member to Talk on Canadian Resort Community

(Posted October 8, 2012)

HUNTINGDON. Pa. -- Marsha Ann Tate, an instructor in communication at Juniata College, will give a talk on a 19th- and 20th-century resort with historical beginnings in Huntingdon, Pa. The lecture, "Of Iron and Ozone: The History of the Summer Colony in Cobourg, Ontario" at 4:30 p.m., Wednesday, Oct. 17, in Neff Lecture Hall in the von Liebig Center for Science on the Juniata College campus.

The talk is free and open to the public.

Tate will outline how a group of industrialists from Huntingdon and several nearby counties founded and developed a resort community in Cobourg, Ontario, located in Canada on Lake Ontario's northern shore.

Tate will outline how a group of industrialists from Huntingdon and several nearby counties founded and developed a resort community in Cobourg, Ontario, located in Canada on Lake Ontario's northern shore.

She will detail how the resort's seasonal residents were not only working-class families, but also well-connected members of high society. Some of the people who habitually spent summers at the resort include the wives of Ulysses S. Grant and Jefferson Davis, U.S. senators and Supreme Court justices, wealthy business people from the United States and Canada, and actors and musicians.

The talk will trace the development of Cobourg as a resort community with an emphasis on the socioeconomic relationships that evolved among the many families that spent summers there.

Tate joined the Juniata faculty in 2012 as an instructor. Prior to that, she taught communications and computer courses at Pennsylvania Highlands Community College, Lehigh Carbon Community College and the State College Area School District Community Education Program. She also owns her own consultancy firm specializing in research, Tate Research and Training Services.

Her scholarly research focuses on North American media industries as well as the development of American summer colonies in Ontario, Canada. She is currently working on a book, "U.S. Capital, Commerce and Tourism in Ontario." In her book, she describes the development of three resort communities or areas, including Cobourg, Lake Muskoka in Ontario, and The Lake of the Woods.

She also has published a variety of scholarly articles in academic journals including Playback, Western Pennsylvania History and the Journal of Sport History.

Tate earned a bachelor's degree in political science from Penn State University. She went on to earn a master's degree in library science from Clarion University of Pennsylvania and a master's degree in communication studies from Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania. She earned a doctoral degree in mass communications from Penn State.